Letting go of control

Throughout my life (all 21 years of it), I’ve dabbled a bit in meditation. Only recently though have I really embraced the power of this stuff, especially in this modern day and age. The main concept behind meditation is to let go. To stop trying to control the outcome of something, because sometimes excessive controlling produces the opposite outcome of what we want. For instance, with sleep: the more you try to fall asleep, the less your body obeys. When you really let go of the tension, then sleep takes you away faster than you can say wait (I swear there’s some good aphorism here that I just don’t remember– but hey, it rhymed 😉  )

As a driven person, who has worked hard her whole life to get to where I want to be, I have had a hard time accepting the fact that not everything is linearly proportional to control and “work ethic.” But sometimes, we have to swim along the riptide, and not against it.

For instance, we really do not know where life will take us. Even for the premeds out there, who think that there path is now set out in a blue print for them. In fact, you do not know what kind of doctor you will decide to become. You do not know for certain who you will marry, and when. When you will have kids, what you will dabble in after medical training. Maybe you’ll be inspired to join Doctors Without Borders in the future. Or maybe you’ll end up writing a book. Maybe you’ll fall in love with biomedical research. The beauty of life is that we do not know, and we can either worry about the uncertainty… or we can embrace it and let go. Heck, we can even embrace our worry about the future. Instead of suppressing our anxieties, understand that they are normal, and enjoy life’s rainbows of emotions. Without the lows, you can’t taste the true sweetness of the highs.  

So if you’re stressing over something that you cannot control, realize that it’s okay to not be able to control everything in life. In fact, it’s even more fun that way. Most of the best things in life happen serendipitously. And that is the beauty of it all.